This was a bittersweet show to listen to given the death this week of Dessi Espana of the Ringling Brothers. Mrs. Espana and her husband are the parents of two children who also are being raised to be circus performers. This episode features Michael Tolin as a "flyer", a trapeze artist, who has been an empty womanizer who also is a workaholic to the point of having practically no skin on his hands (he covers them with bandages). His Dad is the ringmaster (played by Cort Benson), his brother (Ian Martin) and a former circus performer who now is a nurse who also becomes, finally, the love of his life (Evie Juster) complete this excellent cast. Martin also plays "Lou Cypher" (wasn't that the name of the character Robert De Niro played in that hideous 80s movie "Angel heart"), a.k.a. "El Diablo", an incredibly gifted (or so it's thought) fire eater. To make a long story short...Tolin's character makes a pact with this abominable liar. And, of course, he wants to leave it all behind. But he also wants to do "the quadruple"...a four-spin midair spin before his brother catches him. He wants to do it "free as a bird", in other words, without a net. You can see where this one is going, but the dialogue is what makes this worth a listen. Cort Benson calling out instructions to his sons as he watches them try a seemingly impossible stunt in midair is written by a scriptwriter (Ian Martin, who, again, wrote some gems) who seemed to have studied his subject. I like the dialogue of all the characters at the end as well.

Lou Cypher: Old Scratch strikes, again. ;-{

I remember listening to this episode when I was ten years old, when I should've been asleep. I listened to RMT for years that way, but this episode has stuck in my mind, and the only one I remember by name (and the villain's name). Brings back memories!

At the end, E.G. Marshall misquotes Shakespeare when he says, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in ourselves, but in our stars."